SUNY New Paltz Student is Future of Radio

NEW PALTZ — Joshua Reed, a SUNY New Paltz senior and Broadalbin, New York, native has been selected by the John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation to receive a 2000 Bayliss Radio Scholarship. He is one of only 20 college and graduate-level students selected nationwide for this $5,000 award to help defray educational costs incurred during the 2000-01 academic year.

The Bayliss scholarship program is committed to encouraging and promoting student broadcasters planning to pursue related careers after graduating. Reed is a radio/television production major at New Paltz who qualified based on his academic excellence, extracurricular radio activities, career goals in radio, and desire to contribute to the overall advancement of the radio industry.

For the past two and a half years, Reed has been the station manager of WFNP 88.7 FM, the campus radio station.

“I have a knack and cultivated interest in the media business,” said Reed. “Supervising the day to day operations of 165 staff members and a $54,000 annual budget has allowed me to see the ups and downs of radio and helped me to figure out that I want to work in the radio industry after college. I plan to pursue a career in station management, affiliate relations, sales, programming or possibly media research. Radio is here to stay either over-the-air or across the Internet, and I hope to be part of shaping that future beyond my years here at SUNY New Paltz.”

According to John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation and SUNY New Paltz officials, Reed has more than a “knack” for broadcasting.

“You represent the radio industry’s future,” stated Kit Hunter Franke, executive director of the Bayliss Foundation.

“Because of Josh’s hard work, skill and leadership, the campus radio station operates at the highest level of organization and broadcast quality in its history, and record numbers of students are involved with it,” said L. David Eaton, vice president for enrollment management at the university. Eaton added that he is most impressed with Reed because, “He gives of himself unselfishly to the radio station and his university, but never loses sight of his primary goal – to excel as a student in the classroom.”

“Josh is a motivated and organized student, one of the best I have ever seen in my 19 years at SUNY,” said Robert Miraldi, professor in New Paltz’s Department of Communication & Media.

The John Bayliss Foundation was created in 1985 to honor the life and work of John Bayliss, one of the radio industry’s most dedicated and respected executives. To date, more than 200 outstanding radio industry candidates have become Bayliss Broadcasters.

2000 Bayliss Radio Scholarship recipients will be introduced at a major fund-raising event of the Foundation, the 15th annual Bayliss Media Roast, to be held in New York City in October.